I couldn’t help but write when I ran into this
painfully antihistorical passage in your article: “In a phone
interview, Professor Burbick says the gun-rights movement began not
only in reaction to gun laws, but also as a reflection of white
men’s anxiety about the civil rights movement. Right-wing
politicians have deliberately exploited that anxiety, exaggerating
the dangers of government power and of criminals who supposedly
target every unarmed person, she says. ‘The gun has become a fetish
– an emotional response to a changing America,’ she notes, ‘the
idea that somehow, the social problems of the U.S. will be solved
through private gun ownership and a lot more guns.’ ”
The
National Rifle Association and other pro-gun-rights organizations
have spent decades working to protect the civil rights (yes,
firearm ownership is a civil right) of everyone regardless of their
race. To claim that pro-gun-rights movements are based on “white
men’s anxiety about the civil rights movement” is blatantly
libelous and does not at all reflect history. Even in its earliest
days, the NRA welcomed and helped train black men who wanted to
learn to protect themselves and their loved ones from the Klu Klux
Klan.
On the other hand, the very first gun-control laws
in this country (and many since then) were put in place
specifically to take away civil rights from blacks. Professor
Burbick’s smear is simply unsupported by the facts.
Jesse Michael
Portland,
Oregon
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The NRA – a branch of the ACLU?.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
